Rebellion - Let's try to do Strategy Analysis

Heya Splinterlanders :)

Today was supposed to be the time to sum up the last brawl and get some more statistics about YGG Gap Season. I think we still will have to do this next week. And for today we got the more interesting topic, at least I hope so.
Rebelion presale just landed :). Of course, I could talk about the economic aspect of that event: prices, what is the best approach to the presale, how many packs were sold, leaderboard, new airdrop system etc... But you know me, what I really care about is the impact of the new set to meta, new strategies, new abilities, and so on. I really hyped, because what was presented so far looked very interesting and for sure changed a lot for all meta in both formats. And do not forget we will be having a completely new modern format with Chaos Legion and Rebellion Sets only, no more Untamed overpriced cards :)
Let's check what information we have so far and try to figure out how strong and impactful could they be :).

We have presented four new abilities, definitely, it's definitely not so easy to evaluate them without seeing new cards and getting some practice.

Armored Strike: Any unit with this ability gains an ADDITIONAL Melee attack using its Armor stat. This allows characters to improvise with deadly force, using their gauntlets, shields, helmets, or perhaps physical attributes (spikes, hard shells, etc) as weapons!

You should know I'm a big fan of armor, and more armor is never a bad idea in the current meta, even with Immortalis the King rampaging everywhere. Giving the units additional damage from Armor seems like overkill :) Recently with weapon training abilities after some testing, the dev team decided to nerf it giving just half of the damage to adjacent units. That could be a similar case because it really seems very strong, but in the case of weapon training I don't know if it was the right choice, we will see here :) So strong :).

Corrosive Ward: When hit with a Melee attack, a unit with this ability does 2 damage to the attacker's Armor AND reduces the max Armor of the attacker by 2. This is the nemesis to the Repair ability.

Another ability related to armor, this time something to counter it, and I think it is necessary now. It's for sure less powerful than the above one, but still solid. It's very interesting to answer for some sick strategies with armor repair, where you cannot do anything because the armor is rebuilt every turn. Definitely useful.

Flank: If the unit with this ability is in the first position, then the unit in the second position gains the Reach ability. Prepare to leverage positioning and the element of surprise. Now your first two units can work together to bring down the enemy tank!

Similar effect to Possibilus the wise, this time attached to the unit. I like it with Summoner, so it seems a nice idea to have the possibility to use it without him. It can give another surprise element to the battles and give more options for all great melee monsters.

Lookout: A unit with this ability results in adjacent allies taking one less damage from attackers with Sneak, Snipe, and Opportunity. Give your team a heads-up when stalkers approach from the shadows. It's always a good idea to have a Lookout!

I have to say that the dev team did a great job with all the new abilities and this is my favorite. I have already some good setups in my head where I can use Lookout and have a team almost impossible to penetrate. Watch out :)

Besides new abilities we got a really big bomb dropping on us: summoners tactics. It's a new element, where you can choose the tactics after you see both teams on the battlefield. It gives us an impression of what items and spells will probably look like when we have the final version of the land extension (I don't want to even guess when :) ).
I have to say I'm really impressed, that changed the whole dynamic of the fights, gave us more options to counter some of the strategies.
So far we have only seen one summoner, where you can choose between an additional shield to one of your monsters or debuff of range damage. It gives us some idea how what it will look like and what options can we expect to have for the rest of the summoners.
I really like that idea, but I hope with the new battle system we will see some changes in the tournament scene. 24-hour tournaments could be nice, but they aren't completely compatible with new options, and we need more complex Swiss/live tournaments to be able to fully enjoy new toys.

Grimbardun Smith Firstly I have to say I really like new card design. It's more clear, but still not boring. Here we got a Rare promo card which will be airdropped for players who will participate in the new aidrop system. The card is solid, we still do not know what will be the abilities for every level. As you know I have not played the highest league matches, so it's not easy for me to evaluate cards for that league. If for silver we got only 2 of those 4 abilities I think Grimbardun could be too weak. But as I mentioned is not easy to predict how the meta will look like :).

Mantaroth, it's a legendary airdrop card, and it seems very overpowered :). All his abilities make him a beast, the only con is speed, so the opponent has some chance to kill it before it can do any damage. With new abilities Armored Stike, Blast, and True Strike he can do massive damage. The same problem is we know only the max-level card stats, but Mantaroth looks like it we be strong in every league. Of course, it's not the card for every match, 11 mana is a lot, and with no protection against any magic damage, sometimes that could be a problem. But still, it's neutral cards, very strong and for sure it will be used in many battles.

We still have some time to wait to have the possibility to play a new set. The scheduled time for release is the 5th of December, a few weeks before usually we can see almost all the cards on the Maveric test server. Definitely, I will try to test all of them after they land there.
It could be a very interesting idea to publish new cards one by one every week. That way the community has a chance to see the progress and get more hype about it. The same idea is practiced with success in Magic the Gathering, so if you need to take some idea, take it from the best :)
I really cannot wait to play new modern format soon :).

I hope you like this kind of report, battle, and strategy presentation. More strategy analysis, discussion, and prediction games you can find on my Wednesday Twitch Channel stream. There will be schedule soon :)

If you have any comments, please do not hesitate. Do you think I could improve anything just tell me :)